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PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 



PIONEERS OF 
BIRTH CONTROL 

IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA 



BY 

VICTOR ROBINSON,' Ph.C, M.D. 

Author of Pathfinders in Medicine, The Don Quixote of Psychiatry, etc. 
Formerly Editor ojthe Medical Review oj Reviews. 



1919 
VOLUNTARY PARENTHOOD LEAGUE 

206 BROADWAY, NEW YORK 






. * 



Copyright, 1919, 
By Victor Robinson 



Q^(Jo 



H 



Miserable it is 
To be to others cause of misery, 
Our own begotten, and of our loins to bring 
Into this cursed world a woeful race; 
in thy power 
It lies, yet ere conception to prevent 
The race unblessed, to being yet unbegot. 

John Milton: Paradise Lost, book x 



320 



©CI.A561826 

a 



To 
MARIE C. STOPES, Sc.D., Ph.D., P.L.S. 

WHOSE GOSPEL OP MARRIED LOVE 

BLENDED WITH VOLUNTARY PARENTHOOD 

WOULD HEAL THE BROKEN HEART OP MANKIND, 

THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED 

BY THE AUTHOR* 



Jt is important to observe that Holland, the country which takes mott care 
that children shall be well and voluntarily conceived, has increased its survival- 
rate and has thereby not diminished but increased its population, and has the 
lowest infant mortality in Europe. While in America, where the outrageous 
Comstock Laws confuse wise scientific prevention with illegal abortion and 
label them both as obscene, thus preventing people from obtaining decent hygienic 
knowledge, horrible and criminal abortion is more frequent than in any other 
country, — Db. Sxopbs. , 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

From Malthus to Mill 



I 

II 
III 



America's First Contribution 
Bradlaugh's Challenge . 
IV The Malthusian League 
^ ' V The American Propagandists 
VI Progress in the Professions 
VII Woman's Share ..... 



Appendix 
Landmarks in Birth Control 



page 
13 

30 



49 
58 
67 
90 

105 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING 
PAGE 



Robert Dale Owen 36 

Annie Besant ......... 44 

Charles Bradlaugh .44 

Dr. Charles R. Drysdale ..... 48 

Dr. Alice Drysdale Vickery .... 52 

Havelock Ellis ........ 56 

Moses Harman 60 

Ezra Heywood 60 

Dr. E. B. Foote, Sr 64 

Dr. E. B. Foote, Jr. 64 

Dr. A. Jacobi 72 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 



PIONEERS OF 
BIRTH CONTROL 



FROM MALTHUS TO MILL 

I am not an enemy to population; I am an en- 
emy to vice and misery; and the reason why I de- 
sire that no more children should be born than the 
condition of the country can support is this, that 
of those that are born the greatest possible num- 
ber may live. 

Malthus. 

Thomas Hardy wrote "Life's Little 
Ironies/' but Destiny concocted a greater 
irony when she made Thomas Robert 
Malthus the unwilling father of the birth- 
control movement. This clergyman was 

18 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

a timid bird in the sociological aviary, and 
he turned in despair from the daring 
eagles he hatched. Malthus was not a 
Malthusian, but despite his repudiation, 
the birth-control agitation emanates from 
him and bears his name. As Malthus was 
not born in a log-cabin, but in the lap of 
comfort; as his father was not a hard- 
headed farmer, but a man of culture who 
appreciated his son; and as the boy was 
not sent to a boarding-school where he 
finally licked the class-bully, but was ed- 
ucated at home by private tutors, it may 
excite surprise that he achieved eminence : 
according to the traditions, genius has a 
different history. 

Father and son passed many pleasant 
hours together in friendly debate. The 
elder Malthus was a correspondent of 
Rousseau, and a follower of Condorcet 
and Godwin, echoing their belief in the 
perfectibility of society, but the son ar- 

14 



FROM MALTHUS TO MILL 

gued that "the realization of a happy so- 
ciety will always be hindered by the mis- 
eries consequent on the tendency of pop- 
ulation to increase faster than the means 
of subsistence." 

Impressed with these views the father 
asked the son to write them out, and when 
he saw the manuscript he urged that it be 
published. As a result of this encourage- 
ment, in 1798 appeared the first edition of 
an "Essay on the Principles of Popula- 
tion." A year previous, Malthus had tak- 
en charge of a small parish in Surrey, 
where he expected to lead the undisturbed 
and uneventful life of an English pastor. 
But fame came with his book, and he stud- 
ied deeper to see whether he was right, 
and traveled abroad, everywhere acquir- 
ing information that substantiated his dis- 
covery of the law of population. Whether 
the doctrine of Malthus is mathematically 
correct, or scientifically tenable from the 

15 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

viewpoint of modern political economy, 
matters comparatively little — of real im- 
portance is the impetus his "Essay" gave 
to the study of the population problem. 

The ink that lay in Malthus' horn pro- 
duced a revolution in political economy. 
Praise and obloquy were showered upon 
the author in profusion, for supporters 
and opponents began a controversy which 
is still mooted. The "much-misrepresent- 
ed Malthus" possessed a character of un- 
usual nobility. Unswayed by the adula- 
tion, and untouched by the abuse, he quiet- 
ly kept on revising successive editions of 
his epoch-making book. 

Malthus was a keen diagnostician; with 
clarity he saw the evils of an excessive and 
uncontrolled birth-rate, but as a thera- 
peutist he was a clergyman. For a se- 
rious disease he proposed an impossible 
remedy. Perhaps in Malthus 5 day not 
much was known of sexual pathology; 

16 







HAVELOCK ELLIS 



FROM MALTHUS TO MILL 

perhaps he knew little of the effects of 
sex repression; perhaps it is a clergyman's 
privilege to avoid looking at facts if they 
conflict with his moral precepts — so he 
tried to solve the sphinx-riddle of repro- 
duction by advising celibacy and late mar- 
riages. There was only one weak link in 
Malthus* chain of reasoning — he forgot 
human nature, and therefore placidly 
urged human beings to abstain from sex- 
ual intercourse during the years when the 
sexual instinct is most imperative. 

According to Malthus, only when time 
had cooled the passions and partial impo- 
tence supervened, should man and woman 
repair to the altar. He looked upon the 
lusty bridegroom and the blushing young 
bride as a mei^ice to society — his ideal was 
the decorous middle-aged couple content 
with Platonic relations. It is to the 
eternal merit of Malthus that he opened 
up a new path and found himself face to 

17 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

face with a great problem — but it is to his 
discredit that just then he deliberately 
closed both eyes. 

A more logical pioneer of birth control 
was James Mill, the first of the neo-mal- 
thusians, who in an article on "Colony," 
in the Encyclopedia Britannica Supple- 
ment of 1818, wrote that the best means 
of checking the progress of population is 
the most important practical problem to 
which the wisdom of the politician and the 
moralist can be applied. He admitted 
that the question had always been ' 'miser- 
ably evaded by all those who have meddled 
with the subject/ ' and then proceeded to 
evade the subject himself, but not before 
warily hinting that "if the superstitions 
of the nursery were disregarded and the 
principle of utility kept steadily in view, 
a solution might not be very difficult to 
be found, and the means of drying up one 
of the most copious sources of human evil 

18 



FROM MALTHUS TO MILL 

might be seen to be neither doubtful nor 
difficult to be applied/' In 1821, in the 
first edition of his "Elements of Political 
Economy/' Mill again proclaimed that 
"the grand practical problem, therefore, 
is, to find the means of limiting the num- 
ber of births." 

In the following year, neo-malthusian- 
ism uttered its war-cry — the embattled 
phrase, prevention of conception. A treat- 
ise published in 1822, "Illustrations and 
Proofs of the Principle of Population," 
contained these plain-spoken words : 

"If, above all, it were once clearly 
understood, that it was not disreputable 
for married persons to avail themselves 
of such precautionary means as would, 
without being injurious to health, or 
destructive to female delicacy, prevent 
conception, a sufficient check might at 
19 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

once be given to the increase of popula- 
tion beyond the means of subsistence. 5 ' 

The author of this declaration was 
Francis Place. Born in a private debtor's 
prison, kept by his brutal and dissolute 
father; beaten and maltreated from his 
earliest years ; apprenticed in a passion to 
a drunken maker of leather-breeches ; cast 
upon the streets with criminals and pros- 
titutes ; redeemed at nineteen by his mar- 
riage to a helpmate of seventeen; thrown 
out of work by a strike and boycotted by 
employers; starved until the terror of pov- 
erty left an indelible mark upon him, 
Francis Place emerged upward, through 
life's quagmire, as one of the most useful 
men in England. His remarkable library 
was frequented by many important char- 
acters, and there were few social reforms 
in which Francis Place did not have a 
hand. As the "Radical Tailor of Charing 

20 



FROM MALTHUS TO MILL 

Cross," he drafted the People's Charter, 
and discomfited that prop of toryism, the 
Duke of Wellington. 

His faithful pioneer-work for the lim- 
itation of offspring exposed him to life- 
long abuse: the Society for Promoting 
Useful Knowledge declined to receive any 
useful knowledge from Place; respectable 
people refused to be introducd to him, and 
even leaders of the laboring-classes spat 
venom at mention of his name. Yet his 
influence was extensive, the good he ac- 
complished was incalculable, and his spirit 
of reform still animates our times. Not 
Malthus, but Francis Place is the real fa- 
ther of the Birth Control Movement. 

A copy of Place's "Illustrations and 
Proofs of the Principle of Population" 
entered prison, where it was read by Rich- 
ard Carlile, who was more apt to be found 
in jail than at home. In his boyhood, 
Carlile had joined a mob in burning Tom 

21 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

Paine in effigy, but when understanding 
came, he reprinted the writings of this 
great humanitarian. The government 
sought to discourage his publishing ven- 
ture by prosecution, but instead of con- 
sulting his safety, the stout-hearted Car- 
lile published similar books, until he 
earned six indictments. In the middle of 
the night he was handcuffed, and between 
two armed officers was driven to Dorches- 
ter Gaol, a distance of over a hundred 
miles. But the proceedings of his trial 
spread still further, and Emperor Alex- 
ander signed a ukase forbidding any re- 
port to be brought into Russia. 

Carlile transformed Dorchester Gaol 
into Liberty's editorial sanctum, issuing 
twelve volumes of The Republican. From 
his prison-cell, this dauntless man fought 
for the freedom of the press. In connec- 
tion with Richard Carlile, the British gov- 
ernment showed itself both petty and ma- 

22 



FROM MALTHUS TO MILL 

lignant. His sister, Mary Anne, pub- 
lished his "New Year's Address to the 
Reformers of Great Britain/ 5 and was re- 
warded by a year's imprisonment. His 
shopmen were arrested so frequently that 
it became necessary to sell his books by 
clockwork: the customer turned the han- 
dle of a dial, and after depositing the cor- 
rect amount of money, the desired volume 
dropped out. An attempt, headed by 
that arch-enemy of reform, the Duke of 
Wellington, was made to ruin Carlile 
completely, by seizing and destroying his 
book-store. Carlile's wife had little sym- 
pathy with his views, but she possessed a 
warm temper, and was so incensed at the 
government's unjust treatment of her 
husband, that she worked loyally for him, 
raising his book-business to a greater 
pitch of prosperity than the unpractical 
Carlile himself could have done. For her 
efforts in this line, she was compelled to 

23 






PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

serve two years in prison. Only after the 
government ceased its persecutions of the 
champion of free press, did Carlile and 
his wife separate. 

When Carlile first read Place's pam- 
phlet, he determined to write an editorial 
in rebuttal of the new doctrine. He com- 
municated with the author, and received 
frank advice. "I do not see," answered 
Place, "that you are called upon to take 
up the subject of Population in your pub- 
lication. If you think you can do no serv- 
ice, refrain; if you think you can be use- 
ful, go on." 

Strange to say, the opinionated Carlile 
heeded this advice. For the following 
three years he pondered over Francis 
Place's ideas, and his attitude changed 
from opposition to uncertainty, and final- 
ly from neutrality to fervent advocacy. 
Carlile's pen ever lay near his convictions, 
and his tract, "Every Woman's Book," 

24 



FROM MALTHUS TO MILL 

describing methods of preventing concep- 
tion, was the boldest neo-malthusian pro- 
nouncement that had yet appeared. It 
drew upon him the coarsest vituperation, 
but many editions were called for, and in 
summing up his unforgettable career for 
a free press, Richard Carlile of Dorches- 
ter Gaol placed these words on record: 

"After years of consideration, and 
three years of clamor against it, I now 
and forever stake my moral reputation 
upon the character of that book and 
will stand or fall with it in public opin- 
ion. I will endeavor to be otherwise 
useful ; but I have no desire to be known 
to posterity in a higher character than 
that of being the sole and unassisted 
author of 'Every Woman's Book/ " 

Among the young men who distributed 
"Every Woman's Book/' and flung neo- 

25 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

malthusian broad-sheets into the areas of 
houses, until the police interfered, was one 
destined to become illustrious — James 
Mill's son. Years later, John Stuart 
Mill erected a neo-malthusian landmark 
by the publication of his "Principles of 
Political Economy," asserting it was a 
crime for parents to bring more children 
into the world than they could properly 
support. Certain chapters contain unan- 
swerable malthusianisms on every page; 
we select a few passages: 

"Every one has a right to live. We 
will suppose this granted. But no one 
has a right to bring creatures into life 
to be supported by other people. Who- 
ever means to stand upon the first of 
these rights must renounce all preten- 
sions to the last. If a man cannot sup- 
port even himself unless others help 
him, those others are entitled to say 
26 



FROM MALTHUS TO MILL 

that they do not also undertake the sup- 
port of any offspring which it is phys- 
ically possible for him to summon into 
the world. Yet there are abundance of 
writers and public speakers, including 
many of the most ostentatious preten- 
sions to high feeling, whose views of 
life are so truly brutish that they see 
hardship in preventing paupers from 
breeding hereditary paupers in the 
workhouse itself. Posterity will one 
day ask with astonishment, what sort 
of people it could be among whom such 
preachers could find proselytes." 

"When persons are once married, the 
idea, in this country, never seems to 
enter any one's mind that having or not 
having a family, or the number of which 
it shall consist, is amenable to their own 
control. One would imagine that chil- 
dren were rained down upon married 
27 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

people direct from heaven, without 
their having either art or part in the 
matter; that it was really, as the com- 
mon phrase has it, God's will, and not 
their own, which decided the number 
of their offspring." 

"Only when, in addition to just insti- 
tutions, the increase of mankind shall 
be under the deliberate guidance of a 
judicious foresight, can the conquests 
made from the powers of Nature by the 
intellect and energy of scientific discov- 
erers become the common property of 
the species, and the means of improving 
and elevating the universal lot." 

"It is seldom by the choice of the wife 
that families are too numerous ; on her 
devolves (along with all the physical 
suffering and at least a full share of the 
privations) the whole of the domestic 
28 



FROM MALTHUS TO MILL 

drudgery resulting from the excess. To 
be relieved from it would be hailed as a 
blessing by multitudes of women, who 
now never venture to urge such a claim, 
but who would urge it if supported by 
the moral feelings of the community. 
Among the barbarisms which law and 
morals have not yet ceased to sanction 
is, that any human being should be per- 
mitted to consider himself as having 
a right to the person of another." 

The purity of Mill's life, and his emin- 
ence as a thinker, could not save his grave 
from the mud-slinging of an Abraham 
Hayward — but through such slime all re- 
formers must pass. 



29 



II 



AMERICA'S FIRST CONTRI- 
BUTION 

I sit down to write a little treatise, which will 
subject me to abuse from the self-righteous, to 
misrepresentation from the hypocritical, and to re- 
proach even from the honestly prejudiced. Some 
may refuse to read it; and many others will mis- 
conceive its tendency. I would have delayed its 
publication, had the choice been permitted me, 
until the public was better prepared to receive it: 
but the enemies of reform have already foisted 
the subject, in an odious form, on the public; and 
I have no choice left. 

Robert Dale Owen: Moral Physiology. 

Robert Owen certainly received his 
share of vilification. Although he trans- 
formed the mill-people of New Lanarck 
from ignorant, drunken and vicious scum 
— whole families herding together in one 

30 



AMERICA'S CONTRIBUTION 

filthy room — into thrifty, clean and edu- 
cation-loving citizens, although he "orig- 
inated and organized infant schools, se- 
cured a reduction of the hours of labor for 
women and children in factories, strove to 
promote international arbitration, and 
spent his life and a large fortune in seek- 
ing to improve his fellow men," he was 
viewed with suspicion because he was 
skeptical regarding theology. Moreover, 
there was another reason for distrusting 
Robert Owen: after witnessing hundreds 
and hundreds of children, five and six 
years of age, taken from poor-houses and 
charities and sentenced to long hours, of 
drudgery in mills and factories, he culti- 
vated the friendship of Francis Place. In 
the days when the so-called Diabolical 
Handbill — a neatly-printed circular de- 
scribing methods of limiting progeny to 
the number desired — nearly set the 
Thames on fire, Robert Owen was flatly 

81 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

accused of the authorship and was chal- 
lenged to deny it, but he uttered no re- 
pudiation. 

His New Harmony colony on the banks 
of the Wabash was one of those unsuc- 
cessful experiments which are more sig- 
nificant than successful ventures. In de- 
feat, Robert Owen returned to Europe, 
but he left four valuable sons in America. 
The eldest, Robert Dale Owen, as a mem- 
ber of the Indiana legislature, procured 
for married women the right to control 
property and the right to their own earn- 
ings, and he injected as much rationalism 
into the divorce laws as his contempora- 
ries would permit. He was the founder of 
the public-school system of Indiana, and 
when in Congress he became "the legis- 
lative father of the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion," and accident made him the first 
American advocate of birth control. 

A Brighton compositor, learning that 
32 



AMERICA'S CONTRIBUTION 

one of his friends was departing for 
America, placed some printed matter in 
his hand, and requested him to exhibit the 
specimens to the craftsmen abroad, as 
examples of English typography. These 
copies were presented to Robert Dale 
Owen, who was sufficiently public-spirit- 
ed to feel that they should belong to a 
printers' society rather than to an individ- 
ual, and accordingly mafled them to the 
Typographical Society of New York. 
Owen expected to hear no more of the 
matter, but his specimens were returned 
to him with a long letter of unrestrained 
insult, charging him with debauchery, and 
of "holding out inducements and facilities 
for the prostitution of our daughters, sis- 
ters and wives." Upon investigation, the 
surprised man discovered that these moral 
printers accused him of approving of 
Richard Carlile's "Every Woman's 
Book," and accordingly refused to accept 

33 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

from his dishonored person any examples 
of ingenious typography. 

This onslaught was directly responsible 
for the production of Owen's "Moral 
Physiology," in the preface of which he 
explained his position. "My principles," 
wrote Robert Dale Owen, "thus officious- 
ly and publicly attacked, I have felt it a 
duty to step forward and vindicate them; 
and this the rather, because, unless I give 
my own sentiments, I shall be understood 
as unqualifiedly endorsing Richard Car- 
lile's. Now, no one admires more than I 
do the courage which induced that bold 
advocate of heresy to broach this impor- 
tant subject; and to him be the praise ac- 
corded, that he was the first to venture it. 
But the manner of his book I do not ad- 
mire." Owen's "Moral Physiology" was 
published in New York in December, 
1830, and within seven months the writer 
was called upon to prepare five editions, 

U 



AMERICA'S CONTRIBUTION 

and several further editions appeared in 
1832. 

The seemingly widespread belief that 
female chastity can be kept alive only by 
the fear of pregnancy was attacked by 
Owen in the following indignant and flor- 
id manner: 

"Truly, but they pay their wives, 
their sisters, and their daughters, a poor 
compliment! Is, then, this vaunted 
chastity a mere thing of circumstance 
and occasion? Is there but the differ- 
ence of opportunity between it and 
prostitution? Would their wives, their 
sisters, and tfieir daughters, if once ab- 
solved from the fear of offspring, be- 
come prostitutes — sell their embraces 
for gold, and descend to a level with the 
most degraded? In truth, they slander 
their own kindred; they libel their own 
wives, sisters, and daughters. If they 
35 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

spoke truth — if fear were indeed the 
only safeguard of their relatives' chas- 
tity, little value should I place on a vir- 
tue like that ! and small would I esteem 
his offense, who should attempt or se- 
duce it. 

"That chastity which is worth pre- 
serving is not the chastity that owes its 
birth to fear and ignorance. If to en- 
lighten a woman regarding a simple 
physiological fact will make her a pros- 
titute, she must be especially predis- 
posed to profligacy. But it is a libel 
on the sex. . . . For myself, I would 
withhold from no sister, or daughter, or 
wife of mine, any ascertained fact what- 
ever. It should be to me a duty and 
pleasure to communicate to them all I 
knew myself; and I should hold it an 
insult to their understandings and their 
hearts to imagine, that their virtue 
would diminish as their knowledge in- 
36 




ROBERT DALE OWEN 



AMERICA'S CONTRIBUTION 

creased. Would we but trust human 
nature, instead of continually suspect- 
ing it, and guarding it by bolts and 
bars, and thinking to make it very 
chaste by keeping it very ignorant, what 
a different world we should have of it! 
The virtue of ignorance is a sickly 
plant, ever exposed to the caterpillar 
of corruption, liable to be scorched and 
blasted even by the free light of heav- 
en; of precarious growth; and even if 
at last artificially matured, of little or 
no real value . . . 

"This book will make its way through 
the whole United States. Curiosity and 
the notoriety which has already been 
given to the subject will suffice at first 
to obtain for it circulation. The prac- 
tical importance of the subject it treats 
will do the rest. It needed but some 
one to start the stone ; its own momen- 
tum will suffice to carry it forward. 
37 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

"But, if we could prevent the circu- 
lation of truth, why should we? We 
are not afraid of it ourselves. No man 
thinks his morality will suffer by it. 
Each feels certain that his virtue can 
stand any degree of knowledge. And 
is it not the height of egregious pre- 
sumption in each to imagine that his 
neighbor is so much weaker than him- 
self, and requires a bandage which he 
can do without?" 

"Moral Physiology" was the best-rea- 
soned and most elaborate contribution to 
family limitation that had yet been writ- 
ten, and it delighted Francis Place, who 
sent copies to Harriet Martineau and to 
many other celebrities. 



38 



Ill 

BRADLAUGH'S CHALLENGE 

I may, therefore, state generally that this ques- 
tion is to me no new question ; that for many years 
I have advocated this subject in public; that I 
have issued a journal declared to be Malthusian 
in its policy for nearly twenty years, and, as I 
told you before, Lord Amber ley referred to it and 
to me in a speech which he made at a science 
assembly in 1868, and thanked me for having 
pressed this question upon the attention of the 
working-classes, and the same estimate of my la- 
bors in this direction has been left on record by 
that eminent thinker, John Stuart Mill. Gentle- 
men, I should have been disloyal to my views 
enunciated long ago, to my program in connection 
with the population question issued some twenty 
years ago, and thoroughly believed in by me ever 
since, if I had not defended this action. 

Bradlaxjgh: Address to the Jury. 

The perusal of Owen's "Moral Physi- 
ology'' induced a physician in Boston to 

39 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

write a work along the same lines. Dr. 
Charles Knowlton's "Fruits of Philos- 
ophy/ ' containing a practical chapter on 
checking conception, was published in 
1833, and is interesting as being the first 
medical contribution to birth control. 
Carlile's friend, James Watson, intro- 
duced "Fruits of Philosophy" into Eng- 
land, where for forty years it circulated 
lazily along. By 1876, "Fruits of Phil- 
osophy" was almost antiquated, but Lord 
Campbell's Act was new, and it swooped 
down on Knowlton's brochure, denounced 
it as obscene, arrested a Bristol bookseller, 
and prosecuted the publisher. The fright- 
ened proprietor implored pardon, admit- 
ted he was guilty of obscenity, and prom- 
ised never to offend again. The authori- 
ties imposed a light sentence, congratulat- 
ing themselves upon an easy victory, but 
at this moment there leaped into the fray 

40 



BRADLAUGH'S CHALLENGE 

one of the most romantic personalities of 
the nineteenth century. 

Charles Bradlaugh was one of those 
men who are born in hovels but are des- 
tined to shake palaces. His father was a 
poor solicitor's clerk and his mother had 
been a nurse-maid, and Bradlaugh him- 
self began his career as an office-boy. He 
was only a lad when he was labeled an 
atheist and discharged from employment, 
because he had fraternized with some of 
Richard Carlile's disciples. In his twen- 
ties he became editor of the National Re- 
former, and it was apparent that freedom 
had gained a vigorous defender. His 
open-air meetings provoked riots and 
clashes with the police, but when Charles 
Bradlaugh spoke, justice unbandaged her 
eyes. 

Like all men who dedicate their lives to 
assailing current iniquities, Bradlaugh 
was accused of breaking every command- 

41 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

ment in the decalog and of committing 
every crime in the calendar, and there 
were found human beings base enough to 
argue that Bradlaugh could not be libeled 
or slandered because he was a professed 
freethinker and republican. His unself- 
ishness, his warm-hearted sincerity, his 
passion for progress and humanity, meant 
nothing to those who regard nonconform- 
ity as the unforgivable sin. 

The summary suppression of Knowl- 
ton's pamphlet was a blow at free speech 
which naturally enlisted the sympathies of 
Bradlaugh, and aroused his combative- 
ness. In partnership with young Annie 
Besant, he opened a publishing establish- 
ment at 28 Stonecutter Street, reprinted 
"Fruits of Philosophy," and mailed cop- 
ies to the city police — with this defiant in- 
formation: "Charles Bradlaugh and An- 
nie Besant will attend at the above ad- 

42 



BRADLAUGH'S CHALLENGE 

dress to-morrow, from four to five, to sell 
the enclosed pamphlet." 

Thus arose, in the year 1877, the histor- 
ic trial of Regina v. Charles Bradlaugh 
and Annie Besant. The indictment is 
worthy of preservation: 

"The Jurors for our Lady the 
Queen, upon their oath present that 
Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant 
unlawfully and wickedly devising and 
contriving and intending, as much as in 
them lay, to vitiate and corrupt the 
morals as well of youth as of divers 
other liege subjects of our said Lady 
the Queen, and to incite and encourage 
the said liege subjects to indecent, ob- 
scene, unnatural, and immoral practic- 
es, and bring them to a state of wicked- 
ness, lewdness, and debauchery, there- 
fore, to wit, on the 24th day of March, 
43 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

1877, in the City of London, and within 
the jurisdiction of the Central Crim- 
inal Court, unlawfully, wickedly, know- 
ingly, willfully, and designedly did 
print, publish, sell, and utter a certain 
indecent, lewd, filthy, and obscene libel, 
to wit, a certain indecent, lewd, filthy, 
bawdy, and obscene book, called 
'Fruits of Philosophy,' thereby con- 
taminating, vitiating, and corrupting 
the morals as well of youth as of other 
liege subjects of our said Lady the 
Queen, and bringing the said liege sub- 
jects to a state of wickedness, lewdness, 
debauchery, and immorality, in con- 
tempt of our said Lady the Queen and 
her laws, to the evil and pernicious ex- 
ample of all others in the like case of- 
fending, and against the peace of our 
said Lady the Queen, her crown, and 
dignity." 

44 




ANNIE BESANT 




CHARLES BRADLAUGH 



BRADLAUGH'S CHALLENGE 

The Solicitor-General opened his pros- 
ecution with the vilest insinuations against 
the defendants, but upon being rebuked 
by the Lord Chief Justice, was obliged to 
content himself with the argument that it 
is "illegal to issue a work containing a 
chapter on restriction, not written in any 
learned language, but in plain English, 
in a facile form, and sold at sixpence." 
The proceedings aroused unprecedented 
interest, Bradlaugh and Annie Besant 
were repeatedly cheered as they walked 
from the court-room to their carriage, 
over two hundred thousand copies of 
Knowlton's booklet were sold within a 
few weeks, and in summing up, the Lord 
Chief Justice sadly declared: 

"A more ill-advised and more inju- 
dicious proceeding in the way of a pros- 
ecution was probably never brought 
into a court of justice. Here is a book 
45 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

which has been published now for more 
than forty years, which appears never 
to have got into general circulation to 
any practical extent, and which by this 
injudicious proceeding has been resus- 
citated and sent into general circulation 
to the extent of thousands of copies. 

"And when the learned Solicitor- 
General says that in consequence of the 
challenge sent forth by the defendants 
to the police authorities after the work 
had been given up at Bristol, that they 
were prepared to publish it and sell it 
with a view to challenge the question 
whether it was a work which might 
really be circulated, when the Solicitor- 
General says that left no alternative to 
the authorities but to meet that chal- 
lenge, I must say that I do not agree 
with him; and when he talks of the au- 
thorities I should like to know who are 
the authorities and what are the author- 
46 



BRADLAUGH'S CHALLENGE 

ities to whom he refers. He did not 
venture to tell us that anybody except 
the policeman who was put in the box 
on the part of the prosecution is, in fact, 
the prosecutor in this case. I should 
very much like to know who are the au- 
thorities who are prosecuting, because 
that has not yet transpired." 

After an absence of an hour and 
thirty-five minutes, the jury returned and 
delivered this curious verdict : 

"We are unanimously of opinion 
that the book in question is calculated 
to deprave public morals, but at the 
same time we entirely exonerate the 
defendants from any corrupt motives 
in publishing it." 

The Lord Chief Justice explained that 
this was technically equivalent to a ver- 

47 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

diet of guilty, yet he was disposed to le- 
niency if submission was promised. But 
recantation was not in Bradlaugh's vo- 
cabulary, and when he and his co-defend- 
ant pledged fidelity to their principles, 
the Lord Chief Justice became impatient 
and imposed a severe sentence, which, 
however, was never served, for a higher 
court immediately discovered a technical 
error in the indictment, and Bradlaugh 
and Annie Besant were acquitted with ac- 
claim — and thus ended the trial which 
Alexander Bain has pronounced "an 
epoch in the history of our liberties." 






48 




DR. CHARLES R. DRYSDALE 



IV 
THE MALTHUSIAN LEAGUE 

Children have been without value in the world 
because there have been too many of them; they 
have been produced by a blind and helpless instinct, 
and have been allowed to die by the hundred thou- 
sand. For more than half a century after the era 
of social reform set in there was no decline at all 
in the enormous infant mortality. It has only 
now begun, as the inevitable accompaniment of the 
decline in the birth rate. Not the least service 
done by the fall in the birth rate has been to teach 
us the worth of our children. We possess the 
power, if we will, deliberately and consciously to 
create a new race, to mold the world of the fu- 
ture. 

Havelock Ellis: Race Regeneration* 

In the Bradlaugh-Besant edition of 
"Fruits of Philosophy" occur certain foot- 
notes which were introduced for the fol- 

49 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

lowing reason: "Physiology/' said the 
editors, "has made great strides during 
the last forty years, and, not considering 
it right to circulate erroneous physiology, 
we submitted the pamphlet to a doctor in 
whose accurate knowledge we have the 
fullest confidence, and who is widely 
known in all parts of the world as the au- 
thor of 'Elements of Social Science'; the 
notes signed G. are written by this gentle- 
man." The physician referred to was Dr. 
George Drysdale, who produced the large 
neo-malthusian work, "Elements of So- 
cial Science," at the age of twenty-eight, 
and spent the succeeding fifty years of 
his life in pushing its sales. He wrote 
anonymously in order not to offend his 
orthodox mother — but the name of Drys- 
dale has since become indissolubly linked 
with the neo-malthusian propaganda. 

During the Bradlaugh trial, another 
Drysdale raised his voice against the crim- 

50 



THE MALTHUSIAN LEAGUE 

inal folly of uncontrolled breeding — Dr. 
Charles R. Drysdale. He was called as 
a medical witness, and when the Lord 
Chief Justice asked him whether there 
was anything prurient in the Knowlton 
essay, he replied: "Certainly not. It is 
an excellent little book. My professional 
life has been among hospitals for many 
years, and that has led me into contact 
with the poor of this city. I have been 
obliged to see what a miserable condition 
there is of squalor, utter distress, and in- 
digence, even in the great metropolis of 
i the empire. I have been continually 
obliged to lament the excessive rapidity 
with which the poorer classes bring unfor- 
tunate children into the world, who in 
consequence die, or grow up rickety and 
weak. . . . The death-rate is enormous 
where families are large among the poor- 
er classes." This famous trial gave such 
impetus to the movement for the regula- 

51 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

tion of the birth-rate that the Malthusian 
League was organized in London, under 
the presidency of Dr. Drysdale, who like- 
wise became the first editor of the period- 
ical of the league. The Malthusian, A 
Crusade Against Poverty. Dr. Drysdale 
was the author of "The Population Ques- 
tion According to Malthus and Mill," and 
he published a "Life of Malthus" — but a 
readable biography of Malthus has never 
been written. 

The Malthusian League is now presid- 
ed over by Dr. Alice Drysdale Vickery, 
who also won her neo-malthusian spurs in 
the celebrated Bradlaugh trial. At that 
time she held a certificate for midwifery 
of the Obstetrical Society of London, was 
a fourth-year student of l'Eeole de Medi- 
cine at Paris, and was the first woman 
who had passed the regular examination 
of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great 
Britain. After testifying at the trial, 

52 




DR. ALICE VICKERY DRYSDALE 



THE MALTHUSIAN LEAGUE 

Miss Alice Vickery and Dr. Charles R. 
Drysdale were married. 

The present editor of The Malthusian 
is their son, Dr. Charles Vickery Drys- 
dale, who has written extensively on the 
population question, among his works be- 
ing "The Small Family System." Dr. 
Drysdale's writings carry no emotional 
appeal, but they contain diagrams; the 
author indulges, not in perorations, but in 
statistics ; his is the eloquence, not of rhet- 
oric, but of dry facts. 

A few months after the conclusion of 
the Knowlton skirmish — when Annie 
Besant was celebrating the victory by 
writing the "Law of Population" which 
achieved an enormous sale — similar pro- 
ceedings were commenced against Ed- 
ward Truelove, a London bookseller who 
not only published and sold, but believed 
in liberal literature. In this case the of- 
fending treatise was nearly half a century 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

old— Robert Dale Owen's "Moral Physi- 
ology." A member of the jury eulogized 
the book, and Truelove was discharged, 
but Secretary Collette of the Society for 
the Suppression of Vice proved himself 
the British Anthony Comstock by his per- 
sistence in the persecution, and with such 
success that Truelove was compelled to 
pay a fine and serve four months in pris- 
on. The meeting of protest which filled 
St. James Hall, and the enthusiastic ap- 
plause which answered the remonstrances 
of Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant, 
proved to the authorities that such prose- 
cutions would not be popular in England. 
Among the obscure but effective work- 
ers for the Malthusian League in its early 
days, were its ever-faithful secretary, W. 
H. Reynolds, who received an average of 
a thousand letters a month at a time when 
the League * 'could not even boast an of- 
fice;" T. O. Bonser, the Oxford graduate 

54 



THE MALTHUSIAN LEAGUE 

who would engage in lengthy walking- 
tours through the provinces, distributing 
great quantities of Malthusian leaflets; 
and George Standring, the brave printer, 
whose "Memories and Musings of an Old 
Malthusian" are now in process of pub- 
lication. 

In the eighties, Dr. Henry Arthur All- 
butt, of Leeds, wrote the "Wife's Hand- 
book," including a practical chapter on 
the prevention of pregnancy. He was 
soon stripped of his medical honors, the 
General Medical Council declaring that 
the low price at which the handbook was 
sold brought it within the reach of every 
one, to the detriment of public morals; 
had the doctor charged 6s. instead of 6d. 
for his pamphlet, he would have been per- 
mitted to retain his M. R. C. P. E. — but 
this was not the first time that the humble 
sixpence played a role in neo-malthusian 
[ history. 

55 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

Darwin acknowledged that he was pro- 
foundly influenced by Malthusianism, 
Huxley clearly recognized the calamity 
of over-population among the poor, and 
Herbert Spencer has left us a splendid 
neo-malthusian slogan: 

"I detest that conception of social 
progress which presents as its aim in- 
crease of population, growth of wealth, 
spread of commerce. In the politico- 
economic ideal of human existence there 
is contemplated quantity only and not 
quality. Instead of an immense amount 
of life of low type I would far sooner 
see half the amount of life of a high 
type. Increase in the swarms of people 
whose existence is subordinated to ma- 
terial development is rather to be la- 
mented than rejoiced over." 

In England, the battle for birth control 
has virtually been won: within recent 

56 



THE MALTHUSIAN LEAGUE 

years, the Malthusian League has distrib- 
uted, without official interference, thou- 
sands of leaflets to married people, de- 
scribing methods of contraception. Many 
of the leading Englishmen of the day are 
impressed with the catastrophe of un- 
checked procreation. Among the vice- 
presidents of the Malthusian League are 
such distinguished names as Arnold Ben- 
nett, H. G. Wells, Eden Phillpotts, Jo- 
seph McCabe, and John M. Robertson. 
Great Britain's foremost sexual psychol- 
ogist, Havelock Ellis, has written telling- 
ly for birth control, and Bernard Shaw 
has summed up the propaganda in a char- 
acteristic epigram: "The artificial steril- 
ization of matrimony is the most revolu- 
tionary discovery of the nineteenth cen- 
tury." 



57 



V 



THE AMERICAN PROPA- 
GANDISTS 

Having thus started in on the trail of a waif, 
we shall follow it chapter by chapter from the 
womb to the tomb — from its birth in the lying-in 
ward of the hospital to the almshouse for the aged 
indigent, and then on to the potters' field; and by 
the time our chapters on this subject are com- 
pleted we will be able to prove that the physician 
whose agencies can prevent conception stands at 
the head of the list of the great benefactors of 
humanity. 

Brick Pomeroy: New York Life. 

In America, after the appearance of 
the Owen and Knowlton pamphlets, 
there was a lull in the propaganda for 
about two generations, and the advocates 
who then arose were individuals of an ob- 
scure type, quite unknown outside of their 

58 



AMERICAN PROPAGANDISTS 

own small circles; men and women who 
were so radical on most subjects that they 
were practically outcasts of society; their 
revolutionary writings were published in 
such propaganda-sheets as Lucifer and 
the Firebrand, but their names never ap- 
peared in the newspapers — except when 
they were arrested. To this group be- 
longed Brick Pomeroy, Ezra H. Hey- 
wood, Moses Harman, D. M. Bennett, 

! Abner Pope, Jay Fox, Edwin C. Walk- 
er, Abe Isaak, Mattie Sawyer, Moses 
Hull, Isabel Beecher Hooker, and the 
Tilton sisters. These rebels were not pri- 
marily neo-malthusians ; they were sex 
reformers, and were interested in volun- 

! tary motherhood merely as one aspect of 
sex reform. 

Yet no one wrote more forcibly for 
contraception than Brick Pomeroy in his 
"Pen Pictures of New York Life," and 
in 1882, when the hand of the law fell on 

59 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

Ezra Heywood for the second time, the 
charge was not only that he tried to teach 
physiology to the young, but that he sup- 
plied information as to "how, where, from 
whom, and by what means a certain ar- 
ticle, designed and intended for the pre- 
vention of conception, might be obtained 
and had." The proceedings were inter- 
spersed with various humorous incidents, 
but the convict's solemn and impassioned 
eloquence reached the heights of genuine 
oratory, and earned its place in the an- 
thology of persecution. Turning to the 
jury, Ezra Heywood spoke: 

"Sad indeed is it that hitherto Lib- 
erty has come mainly through martyr- 
dom ; that 'by the light of burning her- 
etics' we track the bleeding feet of 
Progress — civilization advancing from 
prison to prison, from gibbet to gibbet, 
from stake to stake. . • . 
60 




MOSES HARMAN 




EZRA HEYWOOD 



AMERICAN PROPAGANDISTS 

"The adverse verdict, five years ago, 
ruined my business, broke up my home, 
turned my family penniless on the 
street, took my liberty and well-nigh 
my life; caged in tomb 52 of Dedham 
Hell, with clipped head and in felon's 
uniform, my physical vitality slowly 
but irrevocably breaking under the tor- 
turing rigors of even a liberal jail — as 
the days, weeks, months wore heavily 
on, and sympathetic, indignant, throb- 
bing hearts in many States echoed my 
protest, these precious children in their 
temporary, charitably-provided home, 
again and again asked, 'Mamma, why 
does papa not come home? Why does 
papa not come home?' Gentlemen, 
shall I go home? . . . 

"If with your aid your agent again 

slave-pens me in a prison-vault to wait 

and waste away, in my narrow home of 

iron and granite until the rude corpse- 

61 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

box bears back this body-form to my be- 
reaved family, even then the ultimate 
result will be worth to the world all it 
costs me and mine; weak things will 
confound the mighty; others and still 
others with increasing, invincible num- 
bers will rise in my tracks, and the good 
fight of faith will go on, until freedom 
to acquire and impart knowledge on all 
subjects of human interest, the right to 
have, print, and mail honest opinions, 
is assured wherever the federal union 
flag floats." 

Associated with this group, was a med- 
ical man who issued to applicants, contra- 
ceptive methods in pearl-type, but al- 
though pearl is smaller than agate, it did 
not escape the vigilant eye of Anthony 
Comstock. This was one of the censor's 
earliest heresy-hunts, but his double-bar- 
reled weapon was loaded with hypocrisy 

62 



AMERICAN PROPAGANDISTS 

and puritanism, with the result that Dr. 
Edward Bliss Foote was mulcted of five 
thousand dollars for having sent his 
"Words of Pearl" through the United 
States Post-Office. Dr. Foote was a phy- 
sician, but an irregular : he was a member 
of the eclectic sect, and he never read the 
code of ethics of the A. M. A., and the 
same is true of his son, Dr. Edward Bond 
Foote, the founder of the Free Speech 
League, who in 1886 published a splendid 
essay on "Borning Better Babies." 

Somewhat outside the main current of 
neo-malthusian literature, and marred by 
its fanatical faith in prenatal influence, 
was the work on "iEdoeology," published 
in the nineties by Sydney Barrington El- 
liot, a Boston physician. But the book 
carried as its motto, "It is the right of 
every child to be well born," and Dr. 
Elliot devoted over thirty pages to the 
limitation of offspring. "If parents," he 

63 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

wrote, "cannot have this power of selec- 
tion, they cannot have well-born children. 
For there must be a deliberate, not a 
chance, haphazard conception; procrea- 
tion, to yield the best results, must be con- 
trolled." Dr. Elliot was about to supply 
a chapter on preventive methods, but to 
his deep chagrin found that it was "un- 
lawful to publish any matter on this sub- 
ject." His book was a factor in the for- 
mation of one of our earliest birth-control 
leagues, the National Scientific Family 
Culture Institute, among its founders 
being James F. Morton, Jr. 

Another propagandist was the man 
whose life was a battle against prejudice, 
beneath whose eyelids fell the tears that 
quenched the flames of Calvin's hell, and 
set the star of mercy there instead — Rob- 
ert G. Ingersoll. In his birth-control mes- 
sage he said: 

64 




DR. E. B. FOOTE, JR. 




DR. E. B. FOOTE, SR. 



AMERICAN PROPAGANDISTS 

"For thousands of years men and 
women have been trying to reform the 
world. Why have the reformers failed? 
I will tell you why. 

"Ignorance, poverty and vice are 
populating the world. The gutter is 
the nursery. People unable even to 
support themselves fill the tenements, 
the huts and hovels with children. They 
depend on the Lord, on luck and char- 
ity. They are not intelligent enough 
to think about consequences or to feel 
responsibility. At the same time they 
do not want children, because a child is 
a curse, a curse to them and to itself. 
The babe is not welcome because it is 
a burden. Against this inundation of 
vice the forces of reform are helpless, 
and charity itself becomes an uncon- 
scious promoter of crime. . . . 

"There is but one hope. Ignorance, 
poverty and vice must stop populating 
65 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

the world. This cannot be done by- 
moral suasion. This cannot be done by- 
talk or example. This cannot be done 
by religion or by law, by priest or by 
hangman. This cannot be done by 
force, physical or moral. 

"To accomplish this there is but one 
way. Science must make woman the 
owner, the mistress of herself. Science, 
the only possible savior of mankind, 
must put it in the power of woman to 
decide for herself whether she will or 
will not become a mother. 

"This is the solution of the whole 
question. This frees woman. The 
babes that are then born will be wel- 
come. They will be clasped with glad 
hands to happy breasts. They will fill 
homes with light and joy." 



66 



VI 

PROGRESS IN THE PRO- 
FESSIONS 

c 

There is no single measure that would so posi- 
{ tively and so immediately contribute toward the 
j happiness and progress of the human race as 
teaching the people the proper means of regu- 
lating reproduction. 

Dr. William J. Robinson. 

( 

The regular physicians of New York 

$ seemed to be unanimously and officially 
•i opposed to any discussion of the limita- 
^ tion of offspring, and the profession had 
] no spokesman for birth control until 1904, 
when a graduate of the medical depart- 
ment of New York University, William 
J. Robinson, entered the lists with a pen 
that struck like a lance. He has worked 

67 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

persistently for the abrogation of the laws 
which prevent information on birth-rate 
regulation from reaching the masses, and 
he has been the most prolific contributor 
to the literature of the subject. Agita- 
tion and argumentation, however, have 
not modified the laws, and a few years 
ago, when Dr. Robinson published the 
first edition of his "Limitation of Off- 
spring," he was forced by the censorship 
to leave blank the chapter he had written 
on the modern methods of preventing con- 
ception. 

But these blank pages, though there is 
no printed matter on them, are not empty 
— they contain an eloquent protest against 
a tyranny that is daily growing more gall- 
ing and intolerable. From perhaps every 
state in the Union have come hundreds 
and hundreds of letters, from the people 
and from the profession, begging for the 
missing information. If they were all pub- 

68 



PROGRESS IN PROFESSIONS 

lished, they would make enormous vol- 
umes of frantic appeals. In our Birth 
Control editorial in the Medical Review 
of Reviews of 1916, we quoted fifteen of 
these letters — a few grains from a desert 
of sighs. 

Locked in the doctor's drawer, the in- 
formation waits — and outside, the people 
wait. The exhausted poor, with their 
! swarms of ill-kept and perishing babies, 
wait ; the consumptive waits, and the epi- 
leptic waits; the mother who is becoming 
. a chronic invalid from too-frequent child- 
bearing, waits ; the young man of moder- 
ate means who would be glad to marry if 
I he could regulate the number of his chil- 
I dren, waits; the accidental parents of un- 
| welcome offspring, wait ; the husband who 
I is a wreck from coitus interruptus, waits ; 
i the woman who aborts whenever she is 
I impregnated, waits ; the woman to whom 
pregnancy spells the grave, waits. 

69 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

But not only the poor and the maimed 
wait. The cultured woman, in comfort- 
able circumstances, is no longer willing to 
be an unintelligent breeding-machine, 
turning out descendants at random. It 
is not for officious meddlers, but for the 
man and woman themselves, to decide 
when they are ready to assume the re 
sponsibilities of parenthood. Millions 
wait, but they stretch forth their hands in 
vain, for Section 211 of the United States 
Penal Code is in their way : for distribut- 
ing information on this subject, the pun- 
ishment is five years in prison, or amerce- 
ment of five thousand dollars, or both. 

Who will repeal this barbarous law? — > 
a law which the legislators themselves pri- 
vately violate. Where is the strong and 
righteous arm that will strike down this 
vicious taboo? To develop a prophylaxis 
against pneumonia would be glorious, and 
to discover the preventive of cancer 

70 



PROGRESS IN PROFESSIONS 

would certainly be magnificent, but the 
man who will succeed in giving the wait- 
ing people the scientific methods of regu- 
lating their offspring, will be one of the 
greatest benefactors that the human race 
has ever known. This should be a task 
for the medical profession, for the preven- 
tion of undesired pregnancy is a phase of 
preventive medicine, and if obscurantism 
were not so well-intrenched we would soon 
see the fulfillment of Dr. Robinson's 
prophecy : 

"There will come a time — and it is 
not far off — when the prevention of un- 
desired pregnancy will be as proper, as 
respectable and as much the function 
of the medical practitioner as is now the 
prevention of typhoid, diphtheria or tu- 
berculosis." 

Unfortunately, official medicine is sel- 
dom cognizant of sociology; conservatism 

71 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

is naturally expected of physicians, and in 
relation to neo-malthusianism the profes- 
sion has shown itself more ignorant and 
reactionary than even the judiciary. Who- 
ever is rash enough to broach this prob- 
lem at a medical meeting is likely to stir 
up a bottomless pit of medieval prejudice, 
and through the indignant denunciation 
will hear prevenception branded as abor- 
tion, or the outcry of an O'Brien that 
birth control means onanism. 

Our doctors, therefore, were somewhat 
stunned in the summer of 1912, when their 
beloved dean, the much-venerated Abra- 
ham Jacobi, in his presidential address be- 
fore the American Medical Association, 
stood on the unorthodox side and advo- 
cated the necessity of disseminating to 
the public the best methods of controlling 
undesired and undesirable fecundation — 
the grand old man thus showing himself 
more advanced than many of his younger 

72 




DR. A. JACOBI 



PROGRESS IN PROFESSIONS 

colleagues. Dr. Jacobi's position in the 
profession rendered him relatively im- 
mune to insults, and it required three 
years and an Austin O'Malley to cast the 
first stone. "It seems/' wrote Dr. O'Mal- 
ley, "that Dr. Abraham Jacobi has be- 
come careless in his associations and has 
joined this estimable galaxy whose cult 
is the lonely cradle. As every one knows, 
he used to be a very useful physician. He 
was imprisoned for high treason against 
the government of Germany in 1851, and 
he is a revolutionist against the govern- 
ment of God in 1915." 

As the father of pediatrics in America, 
Jacobi became famous as a lover of chil- 
dren, and it was eminently fitting for this 
man to have crowned his career as the 
champion of better-born babies. In the 
press, and at birth-control meetings held 
in such diverse places as the New York 
Academy of Medicine and the Free Syn- 

78 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

agogue Pulpit, the leading physician of 
America preached the gospel of genuine 
race-salvation. A. Jacobi was a generous 
admirer of his adopted land; he criticized 
nothing that was American — except the 
Comstock laws. Concerning the Ameri- 
can Inquisition, he wrote: 

"I often hear that an American fam- 
ily has had ten children, but only three 
or four survived. Before the former 
succumbed they were a source of ex- 
pense, poverty, and morbidity to the 
few survivors. For the interest of the 
latter and the health of the community 
at large, they had better not have been 
born. . . # 

"The question whether a family may 
be large or ought to be small, will be 
asked again and again. There is only 
one country in which that question is 
regarded with hypocritical sneers, and 
74 



PROGRESS IN PROFESSIONS 

that country is ours; there is only one 
country in which a man and woman 
must not think of framing their own 
future, and constructing their fate and 
that of their born or unborn children — 
that is the 'land of the free. 5 

"It is my opinion that the individual 
and collective habits in this regard 
should not be guided by other than vol- 
untary self-determination. Indeed as 
long as the state is founded on the fam- 
ily, the man and the woman must not 
and cannot be interfered with by any- 
thing but their own will. Parental re- 
sponsibility alone must control the nu- 
merical strength of a family; the pre- 
vention of excessive offspring is a cen- 
tral problem of both individual and so- 
cial hygiene. . . . 

"Both our federal and state laws on 
the subject of prevention are grievous- 
ly wrong and unjust. It is important 
75 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

that these laws be repealed at the earli- 
est possible moment; it is important 
that useful teaching be not crippled, 
that personal freedom be not interfered 
with, that the independence of married 
couples be protected, that families be 
safeguarded in regard to health and 
comfort, and that the future children 
of the nation be prepared for compe- 
tent citizenship." 

In the autumn of 1915, the Medical 
Review of Reviews, under the direction 
of Frederic H. Robinson, initiated its 
campaign for birth control with a bold 
experiment; the magazine selected several 
men from the bottom strata of life, gave 
each a banner to carry, and directed them 
to parade in the crowded districts of the 
city. The banners which these human 
wrecks held aloft did not bear the inspir- 

76 



PROGRESS IN PROFESSIONS 

ing device, Excelsior, but these large- 
lettered warnings: 

I am a burden to myself and the State. 
Should I be allowed to propagate? 

I have no opportunity to educate or feed 
my children. They may become crim- 
inals. 

Would the prisons and asylums be filled 
if my kind had no children? 

I carmot read this sign. By what right 
have I children? 

Are you willing to have me bring children 
into the world? 

I must drink alcohol to sustain life. Shall 
I transfer the craving to others? 

Thus was the question of birth control 
placed in the path of society. The author- 

77 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

ities and the man on the street could dodge 
the issue no longer — it walked right into 
their midst, and the newspapers and the 
Mutual Movies featured these living ar- 
guments against reckless breeding. 

Among other medical protests against 
unrestricted procreation, the articles of 
S. Adolphus Knopf are notable for their 
statistics and cogency. As professor of 
phthisiotherapy in the New York post- 
graduate school of medicine, and as one 
of the most distinguished enemies of the 
tubercle bacillus, Dr. Knopf is qualified 
to emphasize the relationship between tu- 
berculosis and birth control. The O'Briens 
and O'Malleys have not yet deprived 
Knopf of his standing, although he is a 
professed law-breaker: "I do not know," 
admits Professor Knopf, "the penalty to 
be visited upon a physician who offends 
the majesty of the law as set forth in Sec- 
tion 1142 of the New York penal code, 

78 



PROGRESS IN PROFESSIONS 

but I for one am willing to take the re- 
sponsibility before the law and before my 
God for every time I have counseled, and 
every time I shall counsel in the future, 
the prevention of a tuberculous concep- 
tion, with a view to preserving the life of 
the mother, increasing her chances of re- 
covery, and last, but not least, preventing 
the procreation of a tuberculous race." 

If more physicians would inject the ele- 
ments of humanitarianism into their ther- 
apeutics, and remember the despair of 
many households which found themselves 
doomed to pass through another pregnan- 
cy, birth control would have more defend- 
ers among the M.D.'s. A. L. Goldwa- 
ter's gynecological experience has been a 
ceaseless argument for the necessity of 
preventive breeding. His first confine- 
ment in a shoemaker's cellar on Monroe 
Street, where poverty and the few chil- 
dren that survived from a numerous prog- 

79 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

eny jostled each other helplessly, was a 
grim tragedy that might have been writ- 
ten by a Malthusian Gorky in his darkest 
mood. 

Dr. Goldwater was not one of the ma- 
jority of the New York County Medical 
Society who voted against birth control 
in 1917. He was one of the minority who 
vainly attempted to keep the Society from 
voting itself down as purblind to the most 
important problem that ever engaged its 
attention. Ten years hence that Major- 
ity Report will be held up to universal de- 
rision and will read like satire. Marital 
self-control has been preached for many 
years and by many prevaricators, but Dr. 
Goldwater exposes the hypocrisy of this 
contention by neatly asking, "Will these 
persons claim that sexual relations should 
be exercised less often, let us say, than 
once a year? And if they would permit 
even that amount of intercourse, what is 

80 



PROGRESS IN PROFESSIONS 

to prevent a woman from having a dozen 
children in as many years?" 

But the Cause goes on, in spite of Ma- 
jority Reports, and into long-darkened 
sanctums the light is slowly breaking. A 
long list of physicians could now be com- 
piled who recognize the necessity of reg- 
ulating fertilization. Under the heading 
of Birth Control, the Quarterly Cumula- 
tive Index, published by the American 
Medical Association, indexes the medical 
articles on the subject — and the very ex- 
istence of medical articles on the subject is 
evidence of progress. Moreover, birth 
control is now on the medical map, for 
there is a brief but sympathetic reference 
to it in the second edition of Dr. Fielding 
H. Garrison's standard "History of Med- 

• • 99 

icine. 

Just as the medical profession has its 
O'Briens, so the legal profession has its 
Mclnerneys who itch to throttle every ex- 

81 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

pression favorable to family limitation. 
Yet although many married judges with 
small families have possessed sufficient ef- 
frontery to imprison birth control advo- 
cates, it is an error to assume that the ju- 
diciary has arrayed itself in solid opposi- 
tion to the neo-malthusian movement. 
During the Bradlaugh trial, the Lord 
Chief Justice of England, Alexander 
Cockburn, was sympathetic enough — in* 
deed, he called the theory of Malthus "an 
irrefragable truth," — but the surprise 
came from Australia. In 1888, Annie 
Besant's "Law of Population" was being 
prosecuted in New South Wales, and the 
senior puisne judge of the supreme court, 
W. C. Windeyer, instead of indulging in 
the usual invective against the sixpence 
menace, rendered a judgment which was 
such splendid propaganda-material that 
Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant re- 
printed it in pamphlet form. The charac- 

82 






PROGRESS IN PROFESSIONS 

ter of Justice Windeyer's verdict may be 
sensed from these lines : 



"Having carefully read the 'Law of 
Population/ it appears to me to be 
written with all decent sobriety of lan- 
guage. I see nothing in its language 
which an earnest-minded man or wom- 
an of pure life and morals might not 
use to one of his own sex, if explaining 
to him or her what was necessary in or- 
der to understand the methods suggest- 
ed by which married people could pre- 
vent the number of their children in- 
creasing beyond their means of sup- 
porting them. . . . 

"Information cannot be pure, chaste, 
and legal in morocco at a guinea, but 
impure, obscene, and indictable in a pa- 
per pamphlet at sixpence. The infor- 
mation, to be of value in a national 
point of view as a safeguard from the 
83 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

miseries of over-population and over- 
crowding, must be given wholesale to 
the masses likely to overbreed. The 
time is past when knowledge can be 
kept as the exclusive privilege of any 
caste or class." 

The United States has similarly en- 
lightened judicial officers, among them 
being Judge J. C. Ruppenthal, of Kan- 
sas. Judge William N. Gatens, of Ore- 
gon, Judge Ben B. Lindsey, of Denver, 
and Judge John Stelk, of Chicago, are 
members of the National Council of the 
Voluntary Parenthood League. When 
a husband and wife, with nine children 
which they were unable to support, were 
brought before Judge Charles A. Dudley, 
of Iowa, the judge frankly advised this 
couple to acquaint themselves with birth 
control methods, and added, "Theodore 
Roosevelt, with his anti-race suicide talk, 

84 



PROGRESS IN PROFESSIONS 

has done more harm to this country than 
any other living man." 

But the Windeyer of America is Wil- 
liam Henderson Wadhams, of New York. 
In the Court of General Sessions, a wom- 
an who was the mother of six children 
pleaded guilty, for the second time, to a 
charge of burglary. Illness had driven 
the father from his work in the garment 
trade, and the mother had tried hard to 
support the family, but without success, 
while pregnancy followed pregnancy. 
After his investigation, Judge Wadhams 
was too human to send this victim to pris- 
on; he suspended sentence in words that 
should have burnt a certain portion of our 
statute-book to ashes: 

"Her husband is not permitted by 

the authorities to work because of his 

being ill with tuberculosis. It would 

be dangerous for him to work on chil- 

85 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

dren's garments. It might spread con- 
sumption to the innocents. There is 
a law against that. As a result of this 
law the husband has had no work for 
four years. Nevertheless, he goes on 
producing children who have very little 
chance under the conditions to be any- 
thing but tubercular, and themselves 
growing up, repeat the process with so- 
ciety. There is no law against that. 

"But we have not only no birth reg- 
ulation in such cases, but if informa- 
tion is given with respect to birth reg- 
ulation, people are brought to the bar 
of justice for it. There is a law they 
violate. The question is whether we 
have the most intelligent law on this 
subject we might have. These matters 
are regulated better in some of the old 
countries, particularly in Holland, than 
they are in this country. I believe we 
are living in an age of ignorance, which 
86 



PROGRESS IN PROFESSIONS 

at some future time will be looked on 
aghast." 

In spite of pedagogic traditions, the 
neo-malthusian doctrines have penetrated 
academic circles — perhaps because pro- 
fessional salaries are meager — and from 
the foremost chairs in the country have 
come pronunciamentos for prevenception. 
Beginning with the great Lester F. Ward, 
who wrote most forcibly for the doctrine 
in his "Dynamic Sociology," a host of pro- 
fessors have added to the bibliography of 
birth control. Warner Fite, the peripa- 
tetic who has taught philosophy and ethics 
in the leading universities of the north 
and south and east and west, has contrib- 
uted a pro-essay on "Birth Control and 
Biological Ethics." Clifton F. Hodge, 
when professor of biology at Clark Uni- 
versity, declared that the first right that 
must be granted woman, in the name of a 

87 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

higher and better-born humanity, is the 
absolute control of her own person; that 
she alone can feel when her delicate organ- 
ism is ready for this supreme call of life, 
and that any interference with these im- 
pulses and instincts must come to be rec- 
ognized as an unbiologic crime. Scott 
Nearing, who was promoted from the uni- 
versities of Pennsylvania and Toledo to 
the Rand School, has demonstrated effect- 
ively, in various publications, the menace 
of overpopulation. James Alfred Field, 
who has given instruction in political econ- 
omy at Radcliffe and the University of 
Chicago, has devoted himself to the 
early historical phases of the movement. 
Thomas Nixon Carver, the professor of 
political economy at Harvard, may not 
have written copiously on the pressure of 
population, but he has gained neo-mal- 
thusian immortality by one unforgettable 
paragraph : 

88 



PROGRESS IN PROFESSIONS 

"Foxes think large families among 
the rabbits highly commendable. Em- 
ployers who want large supplies of 
cheap labor, priests who want large 
numbers of parishioners, military lead- 
ers who want plenty of cheap food for 
gunpowder, and politicians who want 
plenty of voters, all agree in commend- 
ing large families and rapid multipli- 
cation among the poorer classes." 



89 



VII 
WOMAN'S SHARE 

Let us insist upon Birth Control now — even in 
the face of statutes, magistrates, courts and jails. 
The rebel spirit is of great social value; it keeps 
the race from becoming craven. 

Jessie Ashley. 

When woman first claimed admission 
to the privileges of higher education, men 
pointed out that a female who studied in 
botany that plants had sex-organs, would 
be unfit to associate with their respectable 
sisters. When she knocked at the gates 
of medicine, men declared that a woman 
who could listen to a lecture in anatomy 
was unworthy of honorable wifehood. 
When she asked for chloroform to as- 
suage the pangs of childbirth, men quick- 

90 



WOMAN'S SHARE 

ly informed her that if women bear their 
children without pain, they will be unable 
to love them. When the married woman 
demanded the right to own property, men 
swore that such a radical step would to- 
tally annihilate woman's influence, ex- 
plode a volcano under the foundations of 
family union, and destroy the true felic- 
ity of wedded life, and they assured us 
they opposed the change, not because they 
loved justice less, but because they loved 
woman more. During the many years 
that woman fought for citizenship, men 
gathered in gambling-dives and bar- 
rooms and sadly commiserated each other 
on the fact that woman was breaking up 
the home. Now woman demands the con- 
trol of her own body, and there are men 
who reply that if women learn how to pre- 
vent pregnancy, they will abolish mater- 
nity. It seems there are always some men 
who are haunted by the fear that women 

91 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

are planning the extinction of the race. 
To attempt to reason with such men is 
folly, and we can only hope that a gener- 
al knowledge of contraceptive methods, 
judiciously applied, will eliminate this 
type. 

Among the women of America who 
have labored as missionaries in this field, 
should be named Jessie Ashley, Rose Pas- 
tor Stokes, Mary Ware Dennett, Anita 
C. Block, Clara G. Stillman, Mary Knob- 
lauch, Lurana Sheldon — and, of course, 
there are many others. In various ways 
they have preached that voluntary moth- 
erhood is sacred, but to thrust undesired 
maternity upon an unwilling woman is 
an insult and a crime; that the thought- 
less breeding of unwanted offspring must 
give way to children who are conceived in 
love and brought forth in desire; that few- 
er babies will then be born, but more will 
survive; that under birth control it will 

92 



WOMAN'S SHARE 

be impossible to raise large armies for 
slaughter, but the army of human fellow- 
ship will increase; that birth regulation 
does not spell race-suicide, but race-salva- 
tion. 

After all, the average individual is 
blessed with a fortunate disposition: he 
has no quarrel with the constituted author- 
ities. He accepts the dominant theology, 
applauds the elected politicians, believes 
the newspapers, upholds the present eco- 
nomic system, and in spite of his suffer- 
ings, defends Things- As-They- Are, hurl- 
ing anathemas at the torch-bearer who 
would lead him out of captivity. All 
through the ages, the lovers of humanity 
have been in prison-cells, while the betray- 
ers of humanity have sat in high office. 
Within recent years, the central figure in 
birth-control agitation has been a trained 
nurse — Margaret Sanger. Ever since she 
announced in the first article of the first 

93 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

issue of her first magazine, "It will be the 
aim of the Woman Rebel to advocate the 
prevention of conception and to impart 
such knowledge in the columns of this pa- 
per," she has held high the torch that 
Place and Knowlton and Bradlaugh lit, 
and in her hands it has blazed anew. Her 
pamphlet, "Family Limitation," brought 
much-needed information into thousands 
of homes, but our censor pronounced it 
"obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent 
and disgusting," and Mrs. Sanger found 
it expedient to interpose an ocean between 
herself and Mr. Comstock. She studied 
the birth control methods which are per- 
mitted in Europe, especially in Holland 
where dozens of free birth control clinics 
are operated under government sanction, 
with the natural result that Holland has 
become the earth's Utopia. 

Balked of his prey, Anthony Comstock 
descended to methods which were emi- 

94 



WOMAN'S SHARE 

nently contemptible, but characteristical- 
ly Comstockian. One of his agents, under 
an assumed name, called on Mrs. Sanger's 
husband, and posing as his wife's friend, 
begged for a copy of the forbidden 
pamphlet. Now William Sanger is an 
artist, not a propagandist ; he had not col- 
laborated in any of his wife's writings, 
and did not even know where a copy of 
the pamphlet was. But his visitor plead- 
ed, and the unsuspicious husband asked 
him to wait, and after rummaging through 
the belongings of his exiled wife, he found 
several copies, and presented one to the 
spy who had invaded his home. 

Mr. Sanger thought no further of the 
incident until he was arrested by Anthony 
Comstock, and found himself in court, at- 
tempting to enlighten a survival of the 
tenth century, named Judge Mclnerney. 
At the trial, William Sanger was mag- 
nificent. From his opening statement, 

95 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

"I admit that I broke the law, and yet I 
claim that, in every real sense, it is the 
law, and not I, that is on trial to-day," un- 
til his last defiant cry, "I will never pay 
that fine. I would rather be in jail with 
my conviction than be free at a loss of my 
manhood and my self-respect. This court 
can't intimidate me," before the attend- 
ants hustled him to the Tombs, William 
Sanger proved himself noble and un- 
afraid. 

In the meantime, Mrs. Sanger returned 
from abroad, armed with a document 
which she had secured largely through the 
instrumentality of Dr. Marie C. Stopes, 
signed by a group of notable British au- 
thors and sociologists. The letter was ad- 
dressed to the president of the United 
States: 

"We understand that Mrs. Margaret 
Sanger is in danger of criminal prose- 
96 



i 



WOMAN'S SHARE 

cution for circulating a pamphlet on 
birth-problems. We therefore beg to 
draw your attention to the fact that 
such work as that of Mrs. Sanger re- 
ceives appreciation and circulation in 
every civilized country except the 
United States of America, where it is 
still counted as a criminal offense. 

"We, in England, passed a genera- 
tion ago, through the phase of prohibit- 
ing the expressions of serious and disin- 
terested opinion on a subject of such 
grave importance to humanity, and in 
our view to suppress any such treat- 
ment of vital subjects is detrimental to 
human progress." 

Coiled between these mildly-worded 
lines lay concealed a powerful rebuke, for 
in every department of sexology Amer- 
ica is the most backward of nations. The 
Malthusian League of England, whose 

97 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

practical leaflet, "Hygienic Methods of 
Family Limitation/' has fallen like a ben- 
ediction over many lands, announces in 
italics, its "inability to comply with appli- 
cations for this leaflet from the United 
States," — for it is not permitted to enter 
a country which has sufficiently forgotten 
its Declaration of Independence to be- 
come enslaved by Comstockery. Marga- 
ret Sanger was not warmly welcomed by 
the authorities, but the public interest in 
her was so intense that the persecutors de- 
layed the case; again a date was set for 
the trial, and again it was postponed ; for 
the third time Mrs. Sanger appeared, but 
there was further procrastination, and 
then unexpectedly, on the eve of Wash- 
ington's birthday, the case was suddenly 
dismissed — and the propagandist's subse- 
quent journey, from coast to coast, was a 
triumphal tour. 

The authorities were ready to quit, but 
98 



WOMAN'S SHARE 

Mrs. Sanger had just begun to fight. On 
the sixteenth of October, 1916, she made 
history. Aided by her sister, Nurse Ethel 
Byrne, and two social workers, Fania 
Mindell, and Elizabeth Stuyvesant, she 
opened the first birth-control clinic in 
America. In the midst of Brownsville, 
she implanted Holland. At number 46 
Amboy Street, she built an altar to Vol- 
untary Motherhood. 

In the crisp autumn morning, Marga- 
ret Sanger opened the doors, and the 
wrecked mothers flocked in, with their 
overworked bodies and pitiful tales, with 
their monotonous tragedies and ruined 
lives, with their sickly broods and ghosts 
of buried children and abortions, begging 
for the knowledge which would save them 
from chronic pregnancy. In that snow- 
white clinic-room, the spirit of rebellion 
flamed high — even against the Infallible 
Church. Elizabeth Stuyvesant asked a 

99 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

little Catholic woman what she would say 
to the priest when he learnt that she had 
been to the clinic, and she answered indig- 
nantly, "It's none of his business. My 
husband has a weak heart and works only 
four days a week. That's twelve dollars, 
and we can barely live on it now. We 
have enough children." Then her friend, 
a woman of thirty-six who looked like 
sixty, chimed in: "When I was married, 
the priest told us to have lots of children 
and we listened to him. I had fifteen. Six 
are living. Nine funerals in our house." 
When Margaret Sanger opened the 
door of her birth-control clinic, she opened 
the way to a better-born humanity. With- 
in ten days a policeman's club blotted out 
the social vision, and the light-bringers 
were headed for prison. Mrs. Bryne 
found herself confronted by a Commis- 
sioner of Correction who cynically re- 
solved to break her spirit; but he was no 

100 



WOMAN'S SHARE 

match for this frail woman protesting 
against injustice. In the workhouse, Eth- 
el Byrne refused to work or eat or drink, 
and after a hunger-strike of eleven days, 
when that unconquerable soul lay at the 
verge of death, the embarrassed governor 
of New York was forced to pardon her — 
although she had served only one-third of 
her allotted sentence. 

After her release, Margaret Sanger 
founded the Birth Control Review, "ded- 
icated to the principle of intelligent and 
voluntary motherhood." The American 
Government's indictment of Margaret 
Sanger can never equal Margaret Sang- 
er's indictment of the American Govern- 
ment: 

"The hundreds of thousands of abor- 
tions being performed in America each 
year are a disgrace to civilization. I 
lay the blame for them and the illness, 
101 



PIONEERS OF BIRTH CONTROL 

suffering and death resulting from them 
at the door of a government which in 
its puritanical blindness insists upon 
suffering and death from ignorance 
rather than life and happiness through 
knowledge and prevention." 

In a world where hypocrites rule, every 
Cause must pass through a prison. Among 
others who have suffered for their efforts 
to spread among the people the most im- 
portant of all knowledge — a boon that 
would wipe out the fountain-source of 
abortion, prostitution and venereal dis- 
ease — are Dr. Ben Reitman and Emma 
Goldman, the latter of whom stepped 
from her prison-cell to the platform of 
Carnegie Hall to address a great birth- 
control mass-meeting — and the immense 
audience which filled that huge hall from 
the orchestra to the back row of the top- 
most tier, cheering every bold word for 
102 



WOMAN'S SHARE 

birth control, was another scene in the 
drama of the awakened people. The 
young editor of The Flame, Van Kleeck 
Allison, received atrocious treatment from 
a Catholic judge in Boston, but from his 
persecution was born the Birth Control 
League of Massachusetts. In the unend- 
ing annals that recount the struggle of 
mankind for freedom and progress, his- 
tory will reserve a bright page for the 
Pioneers of Birth Control. 

Not easily is an Inquisition overthrown 
and before America emerges from the 
shadow, more pioneers will be "honored 
by the touch of the jailer's hands," but 
through the stone walls and across the iron 
bars their spirits shall stand on the hill- 
tops, and looking downward they will see 
the people, in ever-increasing numbers, 
climbing upward toward the new land and 
the better day. 

103 



APPENDIX 

LANDMARKS IN BIRTH CONTROL 

1798 — Publication of Malthus, "Principles of Pop- 
ulation/' 

1803 — Second and revised edition of Malthus* es- 
say. 

1818 — James Mill's Colony article in "Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica." 

1821— First Edition of James Mill's "Elements 
of Political Economy." 

1822 — Francis Place advocates prevention of con- 
ception in marriage. 

1823 — Methods of preventing conception de- 
scribed in "Diabolical Handbill." 

1826— Publication of Richard Carlile's "Every 
Woman's Book." 

1830— Robert Dale Owen's "Moral Physiology" 
published in New York. 

1833— Dr. Charles Knowlton's "Fruits of Philos- 
ophy" published in Boston. 

1848— John Stuart Mill's "Principles of Political 
Economy." 

1854 — Dr. George Drysdale's "Elements of So- 
105 



APPENDIX 

cial Science" published by Edward True- 
love. 

1873 — Dr. Edward Bliss Foote prosecuted under 
Comstock Laws. 

1877 — The Queen versus Charles Bradlaugh and 
Annie Besant. 
— Malthusian League organized, and The 
Malthusian established. 

1878 — Edward Truelove imprisoned for selling 
Owen's "Moral Physiology." 
— Publication of Annie Besant's "Law of 
Population." 

1880 — W. H. Reynolds becomes secretary of the 
Malthusian League. 

1882 — Trial of Ezra Heywood at Boston. 

1883 — Lester F. Ward advocates birth control in 
"Dynamic Sociology." 

1886— Dr. Edward Bond Foote's "Borning Bet- 
ter Babies" published in New York. 

1887— Dr. H. Arthur Allbutt's "Wife's Hand- 
book" published in London. 

1892 — Dr. Charles R. Drysdale's "Population 
Question According to Malthus and Mill." 

1893— Dr. Sydney Barrington Elliot's "iEdoeol- 
ogy" published in Boston. 

1894— "Life of Bradlaugh/' by Hypatia Brad- 
laugh Bonner. 

1898— Publication of Graham Wallas' "Life of 
Francis Place." 

106 



APPENDIX 

1904 — Dr. William J. Robinson opens medical 

campaign for birth control. 
1911 — Havelock Ellis writes tract on "Race Re- 
generation." 
1912 — President of British Medical Association, 
Sir James Barr, endorses birth control. 
— President of American Medical Association, 
Dr. A. Jacobi, endorses birth control. 
1913— First edition of Dr. Charles V. Drysdale's 

"Small Family System." 
1914 — Activity of Margaret Sanger. 
1915 — William Sanger trapped and arrested. 
— Birth control articles in The Survey. 
— National Birth Control League Organized. 
• — Birth Control meeting at New York Acad- 
emy of Medicine. 
1916— Trial of Emma Goldman in New York, 
and of Van Kleeck Allison in Boston. 
— Mass-meeting in Carnegie Hall. 
— Margaret Sanger's birth control clinic in 

Brooklyn. 
— Activity in Ohio, under leadership of Fred- 
erick A. Blossom. 
1917 — Ethel Byrne's hunger-strike. 

— Dr. Morris H. Kahn describes "A Munici- 
pal Birth Control Clinic." 
— Eden and Cedar Paul's symposium on 
"Population and Birth Control." 
1919 — Voluntary Parenthood League organized. 

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